


New York Minutes

by tortoisegirl



Category: Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: Captcha Prompt, Comment Fic, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-04-21
Updated: 2011-04-22
Packaged: 2017-10-18 10:57:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 5,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/188227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tortoisegirl/pseuds/tortoisegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short ficlets inspired by captcha prompts on the kinkmeme, song title prompts, and comment_fic prompts. Lots of Dan/Rorschach, with some others as well. Ratings range from General to Explicit</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. skewer Amarica

It is 1977, and the black and white of the newspapers is nothing like the stark absolutes of his mask, instead blurring into something gray and dishonest as they announce that he is no longer wanted here.

His country's betrayal is no surprise at this point, the shouts and censures and the endless talking and talking and talking still ringing in his ears, but the headline screaming under his hands hits him like a knife in the gut. It's sharp and intense and nicks at the burning knot at his core that send him to the streets every night, digging out haunting questions that haven't bothered him in years.

Around him the vermin of the city swarm unafraid even in daylight, and the anger rises as he watches them trail their filth through the streets. The sign resting against his leg is a comfort, and he drops the newspaper back onto the stack of identical death sentences before hefting it over his shoulder and continuing his daytime guard.

The city still needs them, even if it's too blinded with fear and arrogance to see it, and he's dealt with knife wounds before.

But Nite Owl is also holding a newspaper when he finds him and when he looks up with something bright in his eyes the blade shatters. He'll come to forgive the city that in its corruption knows not what it does, but for the next eight years the shrapnel of one man's betrayal will burrow and settle deep and cut sharper than he'll ever admit.


	2. Booked cent

The man is on his knees by now. He's been white as a ghost since the moment he walked in the room, shaking like a leaf since the man behind the desk first spoke to him, and now he drops to his knees and presses his palms together in desperate supplication.

"Please, Mr. Rizzoli, sir...Give me another chance. I- I promise... I'm good for it, you can trust me with that. I mean, I've been your bookie for eight years now."

"Eight years, is it? That's right, eight years. And tell me, how many of those eight years have you been stealing from me, you lying piece of shit."

"I- I..."

"Did you keep track of how much of my money you funneled away when you thought no one as watching? How much was it, Johnny?"

"About $5,000, sir."

"You hear that? $5,000. Well, I hope it was worth it."

"Oh God, no...please. My wife... please, my kids. Oh Christ don't..."

"You expect me to think of your wife and kids now, you little fucker? No, let me tell you something. You should have thought of them eight years ago. You should have thought of them before you decided to steal from The Underboss."

From their hiding spot in the adjoining room Rorschach feels Nite Owl flinch at the sound of the gunshot. He himself doesn't react at all. He'd heard the conversation. Strange as it was, the Underboss was right. The man knew what he was getting into when he joined the criminal element. He made his choice. He made his own bed eight years ago, and now, as the gun goes off a second time, he is going to rot in it. Rorschach hears something heavy being dragged across the floor. He doesn't react.


	3. Novella goldsworthy

Daniel withdrew his head from the depths of Archie's engine and looked up at his partner. Rorschach was sitting at the workbench, the pen in his hand moving steadily across a journal wedged between a mug of coffee and the innards of prototype tracking device.

Daniel let out a chuckle. "Are you still writing? You've been at it since we got back."

Rorschach shifted, but didn't let up. "Lots to write. A detailed record of the case is necessary."

"Yeah, but right now? We've just wrapped up our biggest case yet. Don't you want to take a break and just relax?"

"Still things to do, even now. You're checking Archie, I'm recording-"

"I mean, you've practically written a novella tonight alone."

"Nite Owl," Rorschach growled, and there was a touch of exasperation in his tone that was almost endearing. The thought of Rorschach seeing him as a bothersome child made Daniel cringe, and for a while pen on paper and metal on metal were the only sounds.

Rorschach hadn't moved when when Daniel again stepped away from all the cylinders and valves. He perched on the steps leading up into Archie and watched his partner's back, unconsciously tapping a wrench against his leg in time with the rhythmic jotting.

"Back in college I really liked writing. I always hoped I'd have more time for it once I graduated, but then I got into crime fighting and, well..." He shrugged. Rorschach's scribbling continued same as ever. "Maybe when I'm retired, when I'm old and have nothing else to do. Write a few articles about owls. Win a Pulitzer. Buy a house in the Hamptons, spend my days getting sunburned on the beach."

The scribbling slowed, then came to a halt as Rorschach slowly twisted to face Daniel. The silence between them spoke more than it should, and Daniel's smile faltered.

"Don't worry," he said, "that won't be anytime soon. I could do this forever." His smile regained its brightness as a look of fond remembrance crept into his eyes. "Especially after nights like tonight. The look on the Underboss's face when we brought him in..."

"Better than any Pulitzer," Rorschach said, and he turned back to his journal.

Daniel leaned back and took a long sweeping look around the Nest. His gaze ultimately came to rest on his partner, and he sighed. "Sure is, buddy. Sure is."


	4. $186.80 slimmer

“Why are you doing this.” His voice falls flat somewhere between the towering walls that enclose them, an anomaly in an alley that takes every rustle and bang and creak the lonely backstreet can produce and amplifies them into something that grates on the nerves. It puts both men on edge, makes them wary of hidden eyes and uncomfortably aware of the shame in the act they’re about to perform.

Daniel doesn’t meet his eyes, keeping his own on the man’s jawline that for reasons he can’t explain is compelling beyond simply not being that accusing gaze. “I’m trying to lose some weight and they say sex is a good calorie burner.” He doesn’t smile, because even as he says it he knows the joke won’t take. He mentally kicks himself because of _course_ it won't take, and who the hell cracks a joke like that when they’re in the middle of propositioning a complete stranger for sex? He doesn’t know what made him suddenly drag the little redhead down the alley- before, he never even noticed the guy beyond a stray glance at the tattered suit, the ominous sign- but they’re here, now, and yeah, his expanding waistline has been nagging him ever since he retired, but what the fuck kind of joke was that?

He shifts his gaze; shakes his head, but can’t shake the awkwardness. Decides on the direct approach instead. “Look, it doesn’t matter why. Do you want the money or not?”

Walter keeps his eyes down, his knuckles white as he grips the handle of the inverted sign at his side. The ground under their feet is stained in uneven patches with the accumulated grime of the city, and nowhere, _nowhere_ , does the pebbly beige of the original concrete shine through. Hidden under strata of filth; clean once upon a time, now struggling to surface where the film is thinnest, but there are so many layers upon layers upon layers-

He raises his eyes; brown meets brown as it never has before and they both know the answer.

The wall is rough against the side of Walter’s face, harsh on his fingers that curl against the brick in a futile attempt to cling to something, but as each thrust drives him into the wall it doesn’t hurt nearly enough. The wall needs to be barbed, jagged, painful and Daniel behind him needs to be brutal and unforgiving so that with every grind of his hips the wall grinds into his skin, ripping and tearing at him through each rhythmic movement that right now feel far too good. Sloughing off the traitorous flesh that still yearns for his former partner, for _this_ \- scraping him away in bloody flakes until he’s nothing more than another unfeeling layer blanketing the street.

One last grunt and a moment of tense stillness- fingers digging into hips, hips bruising against brick, two sets of eyes squeezed shut against reality- and they separate.

Walter slumps to the ground. Daniel immediately turns away, glazed eyes staring through the graffitied wall opposite as he rights his clothing. When he turns back he’s fumbling with his wallet. There’s $180 in twenties, a few smaller bills, a handful of coins that press through the worn leather in strange flat lumps- he had no intention of spending all of it when he left the house, but his hands are shaking and the bills catch in the folds of leather. He yanks out the entire stack and drops it at the feet of the man hunched against the wall.

Walter doesn’t look up, doesn’t give any acknowledgment that the man standing over him is even there, but as Daniel looks him over he seems to curl in on himself without moving.

Daniel opens his mouth, but his breath catches and the words die before they were ever really formed, and he has no idea what he would even say anyway. As he winds his way back to the noise and bustle of the street he tucks his wallet into his back pocket. It feels slimmer without the padding of the bills and he’s reminded of his failed joke, but the pangs of embarrassment that want to hit him don’t find any purchase in the nauseatingly hollow space that’s spreading inside.

Daniel’s footsteps have died away and Walter is standing, shaking, with one hand braced on the wall that is again just a wall. He clutches his sign and steps over the money fanned among the rubble. The shadows are waiting. The sudden corporeality of his body is enough to make a scream rise in his throat; right he wants to be nothing, and there are so many layers upon layers upon layers.


	5. Skulk $1,300

Nights like this it’s easy to forget why they bother doing this. The winter weather is malicious, the criminals even worse, and in a place so bleak it’s too easy to fall into the trap of hopelessness.

That’s why when they see the kid skulking by the back door of a street corner bodega they simply roll their eyes before splitting up for their familiar routine. Everything about this kid, the darting eyes, the hands clutching his coat, the I-need-to-get-out-of-here pace screams trouble, almost as loudly it screams that he’s an amateur. He nearly jumps out of his skin when Nite Owl steps out of the shadows, freezing with a distinct “Oh, shit” before turning and running smack into Rorschach.

After that it’s not even two minutes before he’s chest-down on the pavement with his hands secured behind his back, taken down with just one hit to the jaw from Rorschach. He was probably rougher than strictly needed given that the kid clearly has no idea what he’s doing, but when the little punk doesn’t shut up even as he’s lying helpless on the ground Rorschach can’t bring himself to care.

“Who the fuck do you think you are? Get the fuck offa me, motherfucker.”

Rorschach obliges, removing his foot from the guy’s shoulders to deliver a kick to the ribs.

“Hey,” Nite Owl says over the subsequent stream of profanity. He hooks a foot under their captive’s stomach and rolls him onto his back. From his hand hangs a shabby, empty pillowcase. “Are you hiding anything else in that coat, or was this it?”

“Like I’m gonna tell you bastards. Fuckers walk around like this’s your city, you don’t even- oomph. _Fuck_.”

Rorschach cuts him off with another kick to the ribs. “That’s all he had,” he answers Nite Owl, settling a foot on the whimpering man’s stomach to stop his squirming. “Just that and the gun. Pockets empty.”

Nite Owl sighs and looks down at their detainee. “Do you know how much money you stole from this place?” He holds up the contents of the pillowcase. “Thirteen dollars.”

“The fuck’s it to you?”

“Kid, do you know what kind of jail time you’re facing for this? Breaking and entering, armed robbery, maybe even assault with a weapon. For thirteen dollars?”

The kid's eyes widen, suddenly not so rebellious. “No, no, it wasn’t me. That bastard Johnny whose cousin works here, he gave me the bad tip. Said it was thirteen hundred dollars in that safe, I swear. S’not my fault dumb shit doesn’t know a decimal point from his own dick.”

Under the mask Rorschach raises his eyebrows. He looks up at Nite Owl and Nite Owl is looking back at him, biting his lip and reflecting the same incredulous amusement.

“I’m telling you,” the kid continues, sounding more panicked with each word, “it was his fault. Ya gotta believe me.”

“Hurm,” Rorschach grunts and rolls him back onto his stomach. “Maybe you’ll get lucky again. Get a judge who’ll misread the sentence, give you one-point-three months instead of thirteen.”

Nite Owl grins at him and calls in the report to the police.

Sometimes it’s the strangest things that remind them why they do this.


	6. Sniffled months

They stand at the table as at an altar, heads bowed towards the box resting on the near edge. It’s the box that normally inhabits a nook at the back of Daniel’s workbench, thick-sided and lightly rusting, holding his grab bag collection of screws and bolts and nails and other mismatched scrap. Now it serves as a bed lined with torn-up rags wadded and fluffed to create a warm nest of fabric. In the center lays a mass of mottled brown and white, the yellow beak peaking out of the down curved but too small to be called wicked. The eyes that fill most of the black-ringed mask are shut.

“She was probably only a month and a half old. That’s when they start learning to fly.”

“She?”

“Oh, well, I don’t know, really. Even when they’re adults it’s hard to tell, the only way is to observe and...I mean, I’ve been calling it a she.”

Rorschach nods. He doesn’t look away from the box.

The room’s lighting is all wrong. It’s domestically bright, clinical, picking out the details of the kitchen in sharp angles and metallic reflections that prick at their vision. It has nothing of the soft reverence the moment requires.

The creature, too, is beguiling. The lingering tufts of down give the impression of warmth, the newly-grown feathers inspire images of flight. Yet underneath it all everything is cold and still.

“Didn't want to leave her there. Thought you would know what to do.”

“The injuries were bad. It’s doubtful even a trained vet would have been able to do anything. But, hey, she was more comfortable here than she would have been underneath the fire escape.”

Daniel puts his hand on Rorschach’s shoulder.

“I’m glad you brought her here.”

They stand, hushed, and in the quiet the atmosphere shifts. It bleeds from them, this silence in the face of inescapable mortality, lending the air a different quality, older, instilled with a milieu of flickering candles and stained-glass light. Together they give their silent eulogy.

Daniel’s sniffle ends the moment. Rorschach stiffens his shoulders and Daniel slides his hand away.

“Should bury her. Tonight.”

Daniel nods. He takes a dish towel, clean and white, and covers the box, burial shroud for the too-soon deceased.


	7. Skivved Bruce

Daniel's shirt is off and Walter's hands are immediately on him, making him totter back a few steps as they explore him with the edacity of a man who knows exactly what he wants. Daniel tears at the buttons of the dress shirt until he can feel the hot flesh underneath and reciprocate eagerly.

The backs of his legs hit the edge of the bed, but Walter encircles him with iron arms, holding him upright so to better to devour his neck with needy tongue and lips. Daniel's head rolls back, and he shudders as that hot mouth finds his Adam's apple and presses with just enough force to make it painful and good. His pulse is pounding in his throat, and he can practically feel his blood rushing, racing through his veins to find the fastest route to his groin.

Finally needing breath, Walter pulls away, and Daniel allows him one deep gulp of air before leaning in to kiss him, slow and devouring. A tongue grown skilled with practice swipes across his own as equally skilled hands loosen his belt and go to work on the fly. Daniel's trousers falls unceremoniously around his ankles.

Daniel breaks the kiss with a moan as Walter's hands skate across his hips, worshiping every curving and angle. Walter ducks his head to press his lips to Daniel's chest, and Daniel's nails scratch red lines into Walter's back. So overwhelming are the feelings of those scorching kisses and of calloused hands creeping under the waistband of his boxers that Daniel doesn't register the sudden stillness until Walter's voice breaks through like a burst of cold air.

"Really, Daniel?" he asks, with a touch of amusement that Daniel's hazy mind can't do anything to explain. Walter drops his gaze. Dan follows it downward, to his own boxers where-

Oh. He'd forgotten he'd put those on today.

"Hey, don't laugh," he says, smiling sheepishly through the engulfing blush. "I, uh, really liked Batman as a kid."

The corners of Walter's mouth twitch as he takes in the gaudy black and yellow, the iconic emblem plastered over Daniel's crotch made even more ludicrous by the bulge straining for attention underneath. He meets Daniel's gaze again, eyes eager and bright as glass.

"So did I," he growls, and pushes Daniel on the bed.


	8. Say My Name

"Rorschach." Breathed into his ear, obscenely intimate.

"No." It rumbles from his throat, not a denial but a guttural truth.

Opposite the psychiatrist he was Rorschach, despite name given to him by the case file and a man who would never understand. Splattered with blood in the glow of flame and chaos he was Rorschach, as he was at the beginning. Incontrovertible in red and black and white.

"My name. You know it now."

Unclear, suddenly, when a vision from the dreamed-of past appears in brown and pulls him from shadow and clarifying fire into the yellow light of the Owlship.

Unclear when Nite Owl takes them under the murky river where he is surrounded by his own polluting ambiguity. When Nite Owl pushes him into the chair and Nite Owl leans over him and Daniel breathes against his skin and plucks at the button of the prison-issued slacks.

"Say it."

Rorschach is shut away in the evidence locker to be consumed by the flame-red riot; he his hidden in a hole of black shadow under the floorboards, waiting to be unearthed. He is not here, pallid and exposed and panting into Daniel's shoulder.

The fabric of the cowl is smooth sliding against his face.

"Walter Kovacs."

The water rippling beyond the window is brown and Daniel's hands curled around him are brown- he comes with the sound of his own name in his ears.


	9. Colonial-style topsails

The day dawned with something akin to hope stirring in my chest. With the rising sun there appeared a break in the monotonous stretch of the horizon; the clear cut of a ship in full sail dark against the sky.

Buoyant as my long-strained hopes were growing, it felt too trusting to think that I had overtaken my chase already. But the wind and current had kept me in endless motion, and the days had slipped by uncounted. As the sun rose and the day sharpened the image before me became clear as the dawn.

These were not the black tatters of the hell-ship I sought. This was a ship of this world. Of man. A colony of Heaven piloted by men here under the earth's sun.

The gulls scattered as I shouted to the sky, unaccustomed to the sounds of joy as they were. Never could the most masterful artist produce anything more beautiful than those fluttering topsails; the only sight to match it would be that of the faces of my wife and daughters, alive and safe as I reached Davidstown ahead of the Freighter aboard this, my savior.

But rescue was not to be my lot; they were not heading towards me. The ship was like a child’s toy perched on the horizon, growing no larger as their sails carried them forth faster than my vessel could follow. Scream as I might over the watery distance, the sound was always swallowed by the waves. I was but a speck of a man where no man should be. Not even was I afforded the mercy of a fog or darkness to hide unreachable salvation from my eyes. The sun followed its path through the sky unmasked by any pitying cloud, and for hours I watched the ship draw farther and farther away.

I had before cursed God as being calloused and unkind, abandoned as I was by Him and His angels there on the unforgiving ocean. But thus far I never thought Him cruel enough for this new torture. To place salvation within my sights but beyond my grasp.

Cast deeper into the pit of despair at having glimpsed an escape, I sank to the salt-soaked timbers and wept.

This was my own colony of Hell, with nothing but the gulls and the hollow eyes of the dead for company.


	10. Indicted devoted

She's made a lot of adjustments, physical and emotional and mental, since they started this. They all have, and after a good amount of growing pains they're starting to work together to settle into something manageable.

Rorschach's still ridiculously uncomfortable with sex, and if their gentle, patient efforts in the bedroom aren't working, Laurie figures a surprise blowjob after patrol might help things along.

So she's on her knees in front of Archie's passenger seat with a few inches of his cock in her mouth, feeling vaguely proud of him for managing this kind of stamina. For about five minutes now she's been working him slow and easy, and he's just now starting to get vocal.

"Laurel," he's gasping, seemingly the only thing he can manage, "Laurel...Laurel, Laurie..."

"Jesus, Laurie," Dan says, glancing over from the pilot's chair, "let him come already."

He's probably right. Rorschach's done well; he hasn't called either her or himself a whore, and he only grumbled about it being inappropriate for the first few seconds or so. She pulls back until just the head is in her mouth and starts going at it in earnest.

She thinks he understands, on some level, what she's trying to do; that he's letting her do this at all indicates just how damn devoted to this strange thing they have he is. It's that, more than anything, that broke her heart when he whimpered and gripped the armrests as if for dear life when she first touched her lips to him. He wants to be able to do this, for them as much as for himself. He's too broken to know how.

She swallows when he comes (because that's another thing he needs to learn, that it's not disgusting and he doesn't need to apologize for it) and it's then that he finally touches her, hand falling heavily on her shoulder and squeezing. She smiles as she pulls away, licking her lips. He slumps low in the chair, spent, and quietly lets her tuck him back in and fix his clothing. The zip of his fly being pulled up rouses him.

"Laurel..."

"No," she says immediately, cutting off the apology she can hear coming. She stands and puts a hand on his cheek, turning him to face her. "Rorschach, I'm really glad you let me do that. I like it, and so does Dan."

"You bet I like it."

She shoots him a withering glare. "And that's okay, right?"

He nods. She smiles, and leans in to kiss his forehead. "Thank you."

"Wow," Dan says, as she moves to stand behind his seat.

"What, you want one too?"

He blushes scarlet at that; maybe he and Rorschach are more alike than she thought. "No, I'll end up crashing Archie."

She smirks and settles for a kiss on the cheek. Later, then. When they're pressed together in Dan's bed, a warm mass of unconventionality and insecurity and something else that's starting to feel very right. Rorschach should be ready for another go by then.


	11. Final Laps

Nite Owl estimated it would be a fourteen hour flight. A preposterous duration to consider hovering over familiar New York, but here, with the landscape freezing below them, he doesn’t remember where that time has gone. It’s there only in bright flashes that don’t connect to the rotations of his watch hands (all that time gone, how-); Veidt’s papers combed through and the sight of the ocean opening up below them. Running through the last rations of coffee and Daniel filling him in on the jailbreak planning.

(Daniel wrapping a hand around his and calling him a friend, Daniel offering to heat those up for him, Daniel uttering the word retirement as he shuts the costume locker, Nite Owl introducing himself on a rooftop overlooking his (their) city. All that time, and how did they come to-)

Time flying by like a smashed alarm clock. Appropriate, though. The Comedian is dead and a superman has been taken down. Kovacs exposed for all the world to see. Veidt behind it all. (Daniel leaning in to kiss Silk Specter.) With everything else he’s known coming apart at the seams, why not the passage of time too? There are fourteen hours he barely remembers when he brackets Daniel (Nite Owl, because with everything coming apart at least that has been reformed) against the wall with this arms, silences the questions he knows are coming, and leans into him.

\-----

He hadn’t thought it (he) could get any more broken. Proven wrong, and it’s all crushing in on him like shards of glass. A dead city, a dead mask, dead man; thirty-five minutes, eight years, twenty years since-. Here in the Antarctic wind, time whipped away like the pieces of a shattered- but no, because for time to fly it would had to have meant something in the first place.

Daniel is there behind him, he knows (Daniel burning against him and around him) and there’s just enough of him left for it to hurt when the wind rips away the meaning in that too. The man facing him hasn't yet raised his hand, but Rorschach (Walter) is already a web of brittle cracks, shaking fracture lines.

He cannot see Daniel through the veil of snow; the air scours away any warmth that might have been (was) there. He shouts his last command and waits to be taken apart.


	12. Journey indebted

He owes Daniel so much.

Embarking on this journey into the underworld he knew it would be a solitary life; to find a brother in arms amid the chaos meant more than he ever expected it would. A person to always be at his back, at his side. A person to save his skin, his blood, his sanity; holding him together. Someone to keep a hand on his shoulder as they fight their way along the path they have chosen, a lifeline when the darkest shadows of humanity seep through the cracks and threaten to break him.

Someone who casts a glow on places within himself long masked in strata of shifting smoke, and just as he feels he might burst into flame under the swelter of things unearthed guides him with a patience that makes his chest ache into a new darkness that might not be darkness at all.

He owes Daniel so much.

He steps over the threshold into the bedroom.


	13. Odysseys Harlem

He stares into the red depths of the wineglass, at the light sheening over the liquid and off the rim. It's not quite the same as off of coffee in a mug, and it feels wrong.

Too long; too long since he's sat looking at a mug encircled by-

"..Dan."

-hands covered in dirty purple leather. Since things felt right.

Movement somewhere across the way rocks the table enough to send ripples shaking across the wine's surface. The ripples aren't symmetrical. It bothers him.

"Dan?"

He looks up and blinks as the voice finally penetrates. Adrian's face is arranged in a look verging on concerned.

Dan forces up an apologetic smile. "Sorry, Adrian, I was drifting off there. I'm just- you know, a little worried."

Adrian lifts the bottle of wine- some pricey old vintage Dan's never been interested in appreciating- in invitation. Dan waves it away; his glass is barely a sip less than full. Adrian pours a good measure for himself. "He didn't tell you what he was doing?"

"Something in Harlem is all he told me. Wouldn't even say if it was for a case or..." He feels tired, all of a sudden. Rubs his fingers up under the glasses, presses into his eyelids.

"How long has he been gone?"

"Since the 16th." He doesn't need to look at the calendar. "Twenty days."

"Hm." A long, slow draught. Adrian's lips are red-tinted when he puts down the glass with a sharp clink. "He could have finished up, you know, and simply not gotten in contact since then."

There's a sudden surge of anger at that, unexpected and unwarranted but no less potent for it. Dan bites his tongue, tamps it down because he knows it's not Adrian's fault- "No. He wouldn't do that. He promised-" He looks up at the man across the table; clean shaven and perfectly composed face smiling above the crisply pressed dress shirt; wine-flushed cheeks and an unsettling brightness in his eyes. It's all wrong. He drops his gaze and stands to tip the remains of his picked-over meal into the sink. "He wouldn't do that."

The loud scrape of a chair as Adrian stands too; the heat of a body behind him, close but not touching. "Dan, come out on patrol with me. You're making things harder for yourself by waiting around here."

He takes off his glasses and starts cleaning them as he shakes his head. "I'll just... work on Archie tonight."

"You used up that excuse yesterday, Dan. Come on, it'll be good for you to get out."

Slowing circling the fabric across the lenses, over and over. Adrian smells of rich alcohol and rich food and some cologne he can't name. A sigh. "No."

"Well. Alright then." A hand drops on his shoulder, unbearably warm. Dan doesn't look up. "I'll stop by tomorrow to see how you're doing?"

A noncommittal sound. He keeps his eyes down and jaw firm as the hand is withdrawn, a coat shuffled on, and doesn’t slide on his glasses again until the front door clicks shut.

Remaining wine poured down the drain, he set the coffee brewing; drops down at the table, and settles in for another long night, watching the door and waiting for familiar footsteps.


	14. Pale Emanu-El

The atmosphere in the streets is an amalgam of moods this winter night, simmering excitement for the approaching holidays tempered with a cold that cuts to the core and rattles the bones. Tinny carols playing in passing cars mix with the howling wind; glittering lights strung along fences and in window frames shine in imitation of the stars the city never sees. The holiday spirit permeating the landscape has never been something to stem the tide of crime. It’s cold though, and that is enough to keep the usual array of troublemakers indoors.

It's early yet, hours before they would normally turn in, when Nite Owl turns to him with apologies and the calmly-delivered announcement that he’s taking off for the rest of the night. Nothing wrong, he assures him, just something he has to do, don't worry about it, they’ll meet up tomorrow like normal. The words are belied by the solemn tone and something else Rorschach can’t put his finger on. Through goggles and mask, Nite Owl’s eyes don't quite meet Rorschach's as he shoots him a final weak smile before disappearing into Central Park.

Rorschach hesitates a moment (or is he simply waiting, allowing Nite Owl a head start?) before taking off after him.

They’re clear on the other side of the park when he catches up. Daniel is sitting at the edge of the lawn, arms draped over his knees, back against the wide curve of a gnarled old oak, staring across Fifth Avenue.

He waits for Daniel to acknowledge his presence with a slight tilt of the head before moving forward.

Temple Emanu-El rises pale and austere between the naked trees as he takes the last few steps to stand at Daniel's shoulder. Rose window aglow, the building gives off a feel of peaceful activity rare at this time of night. Through the frigid air comes the sound of singing, unified voices bouncing off of limestone, crescendoing through a melody that feels almost too rich and too ancient for this place.

Rorschach keeps his breathing even, and listens.

From the park behind them someone shouts a greeting, a laugh. A car horn blares loud and discordant off in the distance. The subtle hum of traffic diffuses between the building, while the rumble of a subway filters through the street. And now, braiding itself into all of it, this new, shimmering thread in the city’s aural tapestry. The sound swells towards him like tumbling waves, and he’s sure if he were to close his eyes it would look like the pale yellow of candlelight, pulsing bright with every ringing overtone.

One last golden-toned note, and the song ends. The memory lingers though, thick as their breath crystallizing in the air.

"My father took me here once," Daniel murmurs suddenly, almost to himself, "for a Hanukkah service. The year before he died.”

Bubbling chatter from the depths of the park; the screech of tires from somewhere in the twist of streets.

His knees creak as he lowers himself to the ground, folds his legs beneath him. His shoulder brushes Daniel’s as he settles his back again the tree.

The singing starts up again, a thousand voices rising to the sky, and when they’re joined by one more voice from next to him, whispered but unwavering, it really does drown out the rest of the city.

Rorschach closes his eyes and leans his head back into the curve of the tree, and listens.


End file.
